The Madras High Court on Monday ordered notice to the Speaker, the Assembly Secretary and the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu on a PIL moved by the Leader of the Opposition, M.K. Stalin, assailing the manner in which voting was conducted on the Motion of Confidence moved by Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami in the Assembly on February 18.
The First Bench of Acting Chief Justice Huluvadi G. Ramesh and Justice R. Mahadevan, upon ordering notice to Assembly Speaker P. Dhanapal, both in his capacity as the head of the House and his individual capacity, also directed the Assembly Secretary to produce videorecordings of the proceedings in their entirety.
Besides the petition moved by Mr. Stalin, the Advocates’ Forum for Social Justice, represented by its president K. Balu, activist ‘Traffic’ K.R. Ramaswamy and advocate K. Ravi have moved similar pleas, seeking the declaration of the vote of confidence by Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami as illegal, null and void.
On February 22, the Bench had suggested that Mr. Stalin and other litigants submit video recordings to prove their case in court. However, when the pleas came up for hearing on Monday, the DMK leader’s counsel, Mr. Shanmugasundaram, contended that as a responsible Leader of the Opposition, the petitioner could not produce or rely upon videos available on social media.
“Only official or certified copies of the videos which are available in the Assembly can be produced as valid evidence, as per the Evidence Act. The petitioner has submitted a request to the Assembly Secretary, and has not received any reply or the video clippings yet,” he said.
Advocate Ravi, who appeared as party-in-person, submitted that on February 18, S. Rajendran, in his capacity as the Chief Government Whip, issued a direction to all AIADMK MLAs to vote in favour of the motion moved by the Chief Minister. “The Whip may issue such directions or requests during the regular business of the Assembly. But testing the majority of the government is not a regular business, and the legality of such a direction during an extraordinary business is unsettled in law,” Mr. Ravi added.
‘Breach of privilege’
Senior Counsel N.L. Rajah, appearing for Mr. Balu, said, “It was irrational that the Speaker failed to follow the decision of the Supreme Court in the Jagadambika Paul vs Kalyan Singh case, where a secret ballot was held. Moreover, making MLAs stay in the resort under duress was a breach of privilege of the Assembly.”
Recording the submissions, the Bench ordered notice and posted the pleas to March 10 for further hearing.
